


If I Die Young

by PaleNoFace



Series: Undying Love [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Everybody Dies, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), I'm Craving Death, Keith Is Losing It, Lance tries his best, M/M, Major Character Injury, Please Kill Me, Sad Ending, The Author Regrets Everything, is that a panic attack i see, let's go, there will be blood - Freeform, there will be tears, they won't make it and they know it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 16:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13528053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaleNoFace/pseuds/PaleNoFace
Summary: "Fuck, I'm so hungry."Lance doesn't respond. There is no point in answering this statement. Keith doesn't seem to mind his lack of reaction and adds :"How long do you thing it will take ?"Lance huffs and looks up from his spot on the ground. Keith appears upside-down above his head, leaning on the windowsill. Lance closes his eyes for a moment. He feels cold. He feels dead. No, no, not yet, they're not dead yet. His eyes snaps open again, remembering that Keith still waits for an answer."I told you twice already. Two hours, five ? Who cares ? Tomorrow morning you'll be one of them."





	If I Die Young

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Devilman Crybaby and by the end of episode 10, I was really in the mood to do sad stuff. Now I regret my life choices. Also I suck at angst, guys. And sad endings. And major character deaths.
> 
> Meh.

"Fuck, I'm so hungry."

 

Lance doesn't respond. There is no point in answering this statement. Keith doesn't seem to mind his lack of reaction and adds :

 

"How long do you thing it will take ?"

 

Lance huffs and looks up from his spot on the ground. Keith appears upside-down above his head, leaning on the windowsill. Lance closes his eyes for a moment. He feels cold. He feels dead. _No, no, not yet, they're not dead yet._ His eyes snaps open again, remembering that Keith still waits for an answer.

 

"I told you twice already. Two hours, five ? Who cares ? Tomorrow morning you'll be one of them."

 

Keith grits his teeth and falls into silence. A few minutes pass in relative quiet, except for Keith's stomach growling every now and then. The young man finally gives up, steps away from the window and drops himself heavily next to his partner.

 

"It's so unfair."  
"What, wanna trade ?" Lance snorts from the ground. "Let's see if you'll do better without your legs."  
"That's not... Fuck, sorry, that's not what I meant," Keith growls and burries his head between his hands.  
"Yeah. I know," he sighs. "It's okay."

 

They both look exhausted, but not in the same way : Lance is definitely too pale to be fine and Keith is slowly but surely turning green. Soon enough, they will be corpses. They're going to die. Lance knows it, but he doesn't say anything. Admitting that death is near would be like giving up, and Lance isn't one to give up. So he keeps thinking about his friends, wondering when they will come and save them instead of how much blood he lost, or the bitting mark deep on the meat of Keith's bicep. After a few moments, the other boy makes a strangled noise, drawing Lance's eyes on him.

 

"Are you crying ?" he deadpans, looking at his friend's thight jaw and white knuckles.  
"Shut up !" the other one snarls, head spinning away, an angry sob blocked across the throat. "It's nervous !"  
"Oh no, Keith..." Lance whines and tentatively reaches for him, entagling their fingers together. "It's gonna be okay, you know."  
"No, it's not. You know it's not."

 

There is something so broken in his voice that gives Lance shivers down his spine, but instead of pitying Keith, he drums the back of his hand with his long, covered in blood digits.

 

"Now, now, it's gonna be okay," he singsongs with a little too much enthusiasm to be real. "Hunk will find us, then we will find Pidge and Shiro. Live's gonna be nice and shiny, just like before."

 

Keith shoots him a confused look, then states the obvious :

 

"Dude, we're not gonna pass the night."  
"Oh, wanna bet ?" Lance challenges.  
"What the fuck, Lance ?" Keith rolls his eyes in disbelief while trying to whipe them at the same time, ending with hurting himself more than anything.  
"Yeah, listen : I bet you that we can survive long enough to see the dawn."  
"We're about to die and you're a sap. Great."

 

Lance's tone is suddently more harsh, as he almost crushes Keith's fingers between his :

 

"We're not going to die, Keith. Not tonight. You're not allowed of leaving me for zombie-land before dawn and I do not count on passing away before seeing the light again. So now please, calm down and help me stay awake."  
"God, what is wrong with you ?" Keith hisses, but still taking Lance's hand to craddle it against his chest. "Even if you make it until then, it's nine hours. I have plenty of time to turn and kill you before then."  
"You won't," Lance replies, and there is no doubt in his voice.

 

Keith then realizes that no, he clearly won't. He feels it, deep inside his chest. Even if undead, he'll be completely unable to hurt Lance : it's something he discovered years before and learned to live with. He closes his eyes very tight and brings Lance's hand to his face, to his lips.

 

"Can't argue with that," he hums, even if his stomach strongly disapproves.  
"Dude, did you just quote Welcome to Hell ?" Lance giggles, but Keith can hear how hard it is for him to.  
"Shut it, you started."

 

Lance has a tired smile and lifts his head to drop it on Keith's lap, his hand still trapped between the other boy's chest and palm.

 

"Hey. Your heart is slowing down quickly. It feels weird."

 

Above him, Keith is about to reply but is cut by a loud growl coming from his stomach, so he closes his mouth and swallows hard. Lance wiggles a little, poor imitation of how lively he was once, and talks again :

 

"Tell me a story about your childhood."

 

Keith can't help but smile.

 

"Is that what we're doing on our last night ? Twenty questions ?"  
"Come on, I'm trying to make this at least a little bit enjoyable ! Tell me."  
"You're unbelievable," Keith snorts but starts to think, and the wounded boy feels his heart doing funny things in his chest. "Okay, so. When I was like, nine or ten, Shiro took me to a funfair. It was fun and all but at some point I see the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."  
"I don't remember coming to a funfair at nine or ten, though," Lance grins, quickly hushed.  
"Let me finish. It's a stuffed hippo, light purple, with big glazed eyes, and easily twice as large as me at the time. So I grab Shiro by the hand, put him in front of the shooting stand and say "I want it". And he tries once, twice, three times but he can't shoot enough targets to win the price."

Lance aws quietly on his lap, eyelids dropping but Keith can see how much he's fighting to hear the end of the story.

"And he knows that I won't be happy before I get this hippo. So he disappears behind the stand. After a few seconds he come out and tell the man in the stand that something caught fire. The man runs out of sight, Shiro grabs the plush, gives it to me and tells me to run. In ten years, the hippo never leaved the end of my bed. ...Until the apocalypse, I mean."  
"So Shiro can do illegal things ! I knew it," Lance giggles, making Keith wondering if he's high on exhaustion or just really, really low on blood so the oxygen doesn't get to his brain anymore.  
"Okay, my turn now," Lance follows up. "Did you know that, in my family, there is a tradition about teaching infants to swim ? And by teaching I mean launching four years-old kids in the sea and let their survival instincts kick in and make them swim."  
"Oh my God," Keith mutters, because there is no wonder Lance is so extra when there is a whole family behind to do the same.  
"Anyway, the first time I got to the sea, I ended soaked, crying and traumatized. It took me five more years to get over my fear of the ocean and two others to learn how to properly swim."  
"You didn't launched me, when you teached me how to swim," Keith points out.  
"I wanted to make you like the sea, not to run away screaming."  
"Fair point," he concedes. "My turn to ask a question ?"

Lance's eyes are closed now, but he hums in approval.

"The weirdest thing you've ever eaten."  
"Easy : veal brains," Lance says with a smirk.  
"Ew, gross !" Keith laughs. "Oysters."  
"Top one anime betrayals ?"  
"Ninalexander's fusion in FMA. You ?"  
"Goku's death," Lance says after a second. "Best memory ?" 

_Our first kiss_ , Keith thinks, but then when Lance chuckles he realizes he said it loud. 

"And I'm the sappy one ?"  
"Shut up, like you would say anything else."  
"Oh, I have waaaaay better than that," the other one smiles, one eye opening. "The first time you truly looked at me. My heart literally exploded." 

Keith rolls his eyes. 

"Not even the end of the world can stop you from being a drama queen..."  
"Hey, you know you love it !" 

They fall in a comfortable silence, as entangled as they can with their injuries. Lance's skin feels cold under Keith's hands and he's stiller than ever, but in no way they're leaving each other's side at this point. 

"Tell me something you never told me before," Keith says again, distracting himself from invasive thoughts. 

There is a pose, and then Lance speaks with a very small, spent voice : 

"There are a lot of things I never had the opportunity to tell you, but there is one thing." 

Keith leans on to catch whatever comes next, but recoils a bit when he notices that Lance smells kind of like food. 

"Shoot," he says to hide his trouble.  
"I guess, at some point... I would have asked you to marry me," Lance concludes weakly. 

Keith's heart breaks at this exact moment. He presses his face against Lance's hand, chapped knuckles leaving blood on his cheeks, fat tears tracing silver paths on his skin, but he doesn't care. He only cares that, for the second time of his life, he's losing everything in one night : that everything is falling apart again, leaving him more lost and miserable than ever ; that all he ever wanted is dying because of the end of the world, and he's slowly dying with it ; that whenever he's close enough to happiness, everything burns and crumbles under his fingers, just out of reach. Keith curls up around Lance, howling like a wounded beast, unleashing everything he's been bottling up for so long. Erratic sobs are ripping his chest, making him feel like he can't breathe. Under him, Lance does his best to hold him with his tired arms, but his grip is loose on Keith's shirt and it only results on making the future zombie crying even more. This is not sadness anymore : this is terror and pure desperation. Keith doesn't want to die and doesn't want to see anyone he loves die. Lance can't do much at this state, but tries his best to calm him down. 

"Keith, Keith, it's okay, we'll be okay. We will see the sun again and it will be alright." 

But Keith can't hear him. He has retreated in the special place in his head where nothing can hurt him, except what's already in him. He doesn't answer Lance's calls : there are too many voices roaring inside his head and he's screaming along with them, hands clasped on his ears and eyes shut, trying to keep the world away from him, desperately trying to protect what's left of his sanity. Lance's weight on his thighs is the only thing that keeps him grounded, but even that line is too thin to save him henceforth. 

This is it. This is the end. 

______________________________________________________________________________

"Lance. Lance, _look_. The light !" 

Lance doesn't respond. There is no point in answering this statement. Keith doesn't seem to mind his lack of reaction and adds : 

"See ? We made it. You were right. We're fine." 

He looks down at the unmoving form on his lap. Lance has been cold for some time now, but Keith doesn't seem to notice : he only stretches out a green, sick-looking hand and pass it on his partner's face, shutting down the heavy eyelids on the lifeless eyes. Then he pushes him aside, laying him as smoothly as he can on the dirty ground of the hut before getting up. 

"Have some rest, sharpshooter, you deserve it." 

Lance looks asleep, almost peaceful. Keith's dead heart has a phantom pain, as if the rotten muscle tried to squeeze one last time. His stomach, however, reminds him of its existence with a loud gurgle. He sighs and slowly undo the barrier he made the day before to keep the door shut and turns one last time.

"Sleep tight," he says to the corpse. "I'll be back soon. I'll just go grab something to eat." 

**Author's Note:**

> I always headcanon Keith as someone afraid of death : he would willingly die for his friends/family/cause (s4 I'm onto you) but the idea of disappearing without helping anyone would probably be unbearable to him.
> 
> If you liked this one shot, please leave kudos and comments ! If you want to see more, take a look to my -multi-chapters fics. They're not as sad as this one, I promise !


End file.
